line 63 is the last line of this code section which shows everything upto that point. it is basically where it tries to create the statement. I keep thinking it is something to do with the mySql driver because I am trying to run it on the machine it will work from normally, however it works fine on my developer machince when launched from NetBeans

This method is a red flag to me. If an error occurs loading the driver or getting the connection, the method quietly logs it and then goes on. If the connection cannot be retrieved, I would throw a runtime exception so the servlet doesn't become available to users. This will tell you more specifically what the error is without failing with a null pointer.

Also, I recommend including the exception in your error message as it will give you a bigger clue as to what is going wrong. Feel free to post the error message here for more help.